Friday, February 27, 2015

Always Working Towards The Right Fit

GETTING READY TO SPRING CLEAN CURRICULUM

As we move into the month of March, I find that our block schedule is a perfect fit for us. My kids constantly love a good challenge, but sometimes, they want to coast a bit.

This is coming into our last quarter of our school year. It will last from March 2nd to May 17th.

My steps for sliding into 4th Quarter.

1) Create Report Cards for my kids
2) Update their Umbrella School Review Forms (which are rather detailed and can take a lot of time)
3) Place Test, Quizzes, Project Pictures in their big Notebook of their school year.
4) Put aside pictures for the yearbook they will create at the end of the quarter
5) Plan out the final quarter with 'KID's CHOICE' classes
6) Plan summer camp and curriculum

I let them pick what they want their school year to look like (for any course except Math and Writing)


OUR 4th QUARTER and Final BLOCK of the School Year Curriculum
*Kid Approved*
PE:
Spring Break Camps offered in our area: (1) Circus Camp (2) Lacrosse Camp (3) Exploration Trip Camp
We are lucky to have an area that caters to the working parent and they have Spring Break camps for the time where schools are out. Where were live is close to 3 counties which all have different Spring Break times which allows us up to 3 weeks of camps to enroll. This is how my kids get a lot of their socialization. It seems to be enough for them and keeps them happy.
Sports (ongoing): Spring recreation sports leagues sign up (in addition to Dance and Martial Arts)
SPEED RACER's Line Up.
Since he finished Abeka Academy, he wants a mostly online, interactive curriculum (and so do I since it's easier on me.)
Minecraft Homeschool (Underground Railroad Study)
Saxon Math
Speed Reading (software)
WordSmart (online Wordsmart-Vocab Building Program)
Teaching Textbooks (3 days a week)
Spelling You See
Sequential Spelling (the cd)
Biology (Time4Learning.com)
Language Arts [High School] (Time4Learning.com)
US History [High School] (Time4Learning.com)
Spanish (CleverDragons.com and Education-Portal.com)
Black History (DVD Based Curriculum with Mom's homemade syllabus)
TIGER LILLY's Line Up.
Art Apreciation (Dual Enrollment Community College Class)
Interpersonal Communication  (Dual Enrollment Community College Class)
Sociology  (Dual Enrollment Community College Class)
Animation (Digipen and Youth Digital)
Web Page Development (Currclick)
Python (Landry)
Chemistry (Education-Portal)
Psychology (Currclick)
Pre-Calculus (Abeka Academy)
One Year Adventure Novel (DVD learning set)
TEST Planned: US History CLEP, Analyzing Literature CLEP, Math Accuplacer

Weekly Wrap Up

Speed Racer, 6th grader

He's been rushing through is work this week. I've let him do much of it independent. However, there were a few test and assignments he's had to repeat. I believe it's because he wants to start his new schedule for our 4th quarter. He is finishing up his last week of Abeka instruction and asked to foregore the videos to just finish the work. I let him since he was so passionate in his desire to do so.

Overall, it was a great week with little hiccups.

Tiger Lilly, blended 9th grader

Tiger Lilly had a hectic week as her coursework for her Dual Enrollment courses picked up.  (Sociology, Interpersonal Communication and Art Appreciation). She had several papers and projects due that she had to prepare over the weekend to be ready to turn in on Monday.

Her Wednesday, Web Design with Currclick.com was pretty slim as only 1/2 the students showed up online that day, Python class with Landry she is working on another project - her teacher emailed her to see how she was doing on it, Psychology with Currclick on Monday was a breeze. Blender Animation with Youth Digital is almost 75% done. Chemistry with Education-Portal, she finished 24 videos this week (they are only about 10 min a video so she's been watching 3 a day).

She missed her Digipen-Animation with 3D Maya class, so I emailed the teacher to see where she could submit her animation project she'd finished. She didn't have time to attend the class since she had some college work deadlines.

Pre-Calc with Abeka had her doing 1 quiz and 1 test (her 2nd) this week.

She's studying for her CLEP exam in US History to 1877 Review with Instantcert and has memorized  75 of the 82 facts in her 1st set of instantcert flashcards. CLEP Professor Algebra she finished she completed a Diagnostic test and scored well on it. We are using this to refreshen her math so she can take the Math Accuplacer (college entrance exam - hoping she test into Calculus 1).

WORKING PARENT's LOG

Meals. I'm on a roll and prepped my meats for the week on Monday. Then I got fancy and put the meals into foil pans for baking. I had my daughter place them in the oven or crockpot when I was on my way home. So, from Mon-Thu we had a homecooked meal. Friday's is always Pizza day (my break from cooking day).

Cleaning. We expected furniture delivery but I had to call and postpone it since we didn't move the old furniture out. Why? It snowed. Ugh! So my Hubba and I had to rush and move furniture (it nearly killed me I'm so out of shape). He did a wonderful job of cleaning the house, putting together some of the furniture and taking excess furniture to the dump.

Work & Life Balance. Well even though I was off work to escape to Florida, I came back to some high profile deadlines. I worked some long days but still got home by 6pm. The kids just had some later nights doing school with their dad.

Lesson Planning. Finished my quarter end report cards. Did the lesson plan for the final quarter of our school year. Also, had 'grade' and goal discussions with the kids. Summer camp list and links were sent to the kids for their final okay, and I'll put the deposits down for them next week (I hope).

Rest. Sporatic this week. I seem to have a bit of insomnia. So I've stayed up editing one of my documents for my side business (yes - I'm insanely hyper. But I'm working with it.)

Marriage Check Up. Date night with the husband included going out to the movies to see Seventh Son. It was okay and kept me awake. Then we did dinner and chatted about work, the kids, and TV shows.


6 comments:

  1. You have so many different curriculum choices for the different subjects! How did you choose? Is there a good 'review' spot to check out different things? My kids are 3 and 6 so we've been raiding education.com and teachers pay teachers freebies as well as doing a lot of book reading on a topic (using the library) for now.

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  2. I do a lot of research and go to tons of boards. I also keep a spreadsheet of each subject and the curriculums I think work for my kids. They don't mind trying new things and I researched hard to find different ways to teach/reinforce the same subjects so they don't get bored. So I do the more traditional and challenging work in the beginning of the school year, then progressively make the curriculum lighter by the Spring. I go to the Well Trained Mind Forums, Schoolhouse Review Crew is my favorite: http://schoolhousereviewcrew.com/

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  3. Looks like a great week! Thanks for stopping by Our Journey this week. My hubby and I need a date night. I love how you share your ideas for that too!

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  4. Great week! I always think you achieve waaaay more than anyone else I know does!

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  5. Great week! I always think you achieve waaaay more than anyone else I know does!

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  6. Where does your daughter taker her online CC classes? I've had issues with my son being 15. The CC I've contacted said he needs to be 16.Smh.

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